Girls' Basketball: Frisk returns to HOIC, takes over at Gilbert

Thursday

When Mike Frisk made the jump as a head coach to becoming a volunteer girls' basketball assistant coach at Ames High, the timing was right.

His three girls were getting older, and Little Cyclones coach Joel Sullivan saw an opportunity to bring on a veteran leader. Frisk saw it as a chance to blend basketball and family.

After seven years as a volunteer assistant at Ames, timing — and an itch — once again played a part in Frisk's decision, this time to take the Gilbert girls' basketball coaching position.

“I really enjoyed (Ames), but kind of missed being in charge,” Frisk said. “I just started getting the itch a couple years ago and started thinking if the right thing comes along, I live in Ames and am 10 minutes away from Gilbert.

“Ideally, I would go through the (interview) process and see where it led. I was very happy at Ames, so this had to work out the right way, and it did.”

The timing worked out for the Tigers, who went 9-12 last season, too. When former coach John Barbier resigned the position, Gilbert athletics director Tim Pezzetti drew from a pool of former head coaches who knew how to build programs from the bottom up. That's what Frisk cut his teeth doing at Roland-Story.

After three years as an assistant with the Norsemen, Frisk took over at Roland-Story and coached the squad for 10 years, compiling a 166-68 record with state-tournament berths in his last two seasons. Frisk left in 2010 to take a one-year coaching hiatus to focus on family. He joined the Little Cyclones' staff in 2011 and spent seven seasons there.

“He hasn't been a head coach for a few years, he's been been volunteering and been in a second chair, but you could tell he wanted to do that again and wanted to be the guy in charge,” Pezzetti said. “I'm very excited about getting him here because I feel like he's going to bring that spark to the program that we really need to get things going.”

When Frisk left Roland-Story, 13 of his 15 players were returning from the state tournament team. The year before, the Norsemen graduated 10 seniors and had one returning player. That rush and ability to more strongly impact a group is what drew Frisk back in.

Sitting in that second chair, however, allowed Frisk to expand his coaching acumen. In addition to coaching his daughters, Emily and Ally Frisk, the coaching veteran got to bounce ideas and philosophies off of Sullivan.

Frisk also got to watch how Sullivan planned with attention to detail.

“His scouting preparation is probably something I learned from as well,” Frisk said. “He's just been a good mentor. It was hard to tell him that I was going to be looking somewhere else, doing something different if it lined up right for me, and if the opportunity was there.”

During the interview process, Pezzetti asked each of the three final candidates, all of whom had head coaching experience, to walk him through the first week of practice. Frisk knew immediately what Pezzetti desired: building a strong youth program would serve the varsity program if done correctly.

“Each one of (the people I spoke to regarding Frisk) talked about how he is a guy of great moral character and great ethics,” Pezzetti said. “He works well with kids and is really passionate about what he does. I could see that in the interview as well.”

Building a youth and summer program means Frisk enjoys the fundamentals of the game. It's something he wants to instill this summer with young kids and his new Tigers' players. The style of play he desires, Frisk said, will fall in line after that.

“I certainly want to play a fast, up-tempo paced game,” he said. “We really want to shoot the ball, but run through it in a system where it's not about just one kid, it's about the team. Then developing these kids for life skills on and off the court.

“I'm a big family guy. Big family in basketball and big family at home. We're trying to create that type of environment. I'm excited about the future of Gilbert Tiger girls' basketball and getting to know these kids, spending the summer with them.”

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